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Monday, August 13, 2012

Re-creating the world one genetic manipulation at a time. For
centuries, humankind has been utilizing the naturally occurring
medicinal and healing compounds of plants to overcome illness and
disease. But scientists just don’t seem to be happy with what nature has
to offer.

Up until just a few years ago, scientists had to manually splice natural
plant compounds to patent them for pharmaceutical drug companies; now, a
way has been discovered to genetically modify plants which are actually
programmed to produce pharmaceutical drugs instead of their natural
compounds. Of course not everyone is excited for genetically modified
plants.

Creating Pharmaceutical Drug-Producing Genetically Modified Plants

The researchers, from MIT and led by Associate
Professor Sarah O’Connor, added bacterial genes to a plant known as the
periwinkle plant, altering the plants natural alkaloid production
system. Scientists would be “enabling it to attach halogens such as
chlorine or bromine to a class of compounds called alkaloids that the
plant normally produces.” In essence, the genetically modified plants,
in stead of producing natural alkaloids, will actually produce variant
pharmaceutical drug versions of the alkaloids.

“We’re trying to use plant biosynthetic mechanisms to easily make a
whole range of different iterations of natural products. If you tweak
the structure of natural products, very often you get different or
improved biological and pharmacological activity,” she said. “

It certainly isn’t the first time genes were engineered into plants.
Remember Bt corn? That was created the same way, with Bt corn engineered
to produce an insecticide called Bt.

But the process used by O’Connor is a bit different than what scientists
have done in the past. Using a process called ‘metabolic engineering’,
scientists like O’Connor alter the actual molecular output of plants,
which helps to mold the compounds being produced. Ultimately, this can
lead to a large variety of end products.

The idea of genetically modified plants is disturbing alone, but why
tamper with nature already producing natural, beneficial compounds? In
the periwinkle plant specifically, the scientists targeted an alkaloid
called vinblastine, which is effective at treating cancers such as
Hodgkin’s lymphoma. So why create genetically modified plants and other
organisms? Some scientists may think they are benefiting society, but no
one can ignore the genetic and patented creation gifted to Big Pharma,
and the stealing from nature.